Positive Reinforcement
by rereaderliz
Summary: "He was all set to receive the tongue-lashing of a lifetime. She'd kill him, and he'd die happy." James Potter isn't picky about how he gets Lily Evans's attention, so he's happy to get in trouble and let her tell him off. But Lily isn't about to offer positive reinforcement for rule-breaking. JP/LE with a dash of SB on the side, T for language, COMPLETE!
1. Merlin's Shapely Rear End

**A/N: Hello readers! Trying out a multi-chapter fic, although not a very long one. Maybe 5-7 chapters? I have most of it written already but I'm still deciding on how to split it up. Leave me your thoughts on the first chapter. I know it's short, but there is more to come! Please give feedback because I'm extremely new to publishing on this site.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. JK owns them. JK also owns me. JK probably owns you if we're being honest.**

o0O0o

"Prongs, what in the name of Merlin's shapely rear end are you doing? This is supposed to be a stealth operation and you're clomping about like a dragon in steel-toed boots. Fly on silent wings, please, mate. Use your Merlin-forsaken dragon wings."

James Potter ignored Sirius Black's half-earnest, half-joking pleas. The two sixth year boys were on their way to charm Slughorn's classroom to the most disgusting décor they could come up with—pink walls, frills, and decorative cat plates. They'd be using spells and tools they had created themselves and would require a solid hour to do the job right. Hence the cover of night and need for stealth.

It was true that James was clomping a bit. He even nudged a suit of armor that they passed in order to produce a loud clang. He may have been hoping that a certain red-headed Gryffindor prefect would happen upon them and yell at him for a while. He cherished these moments when Lily would look at him in the face for a few minutes and the strength of her anger and passion would set her hands flying in wide gestures and her face would go a pink color that should have clashed with her hair but that James found incredibly attractive. He'd also found that the more he let his happiness show on his face during these diatribes, the longer they went on because Lily knew he wasn't learning any kind of lesson whatsoever.

Sirius stopped in the corridor and faced his best friend.

"Prongs, I realize that you are hoping as you always hope that she will interact with you by telling you off, but, in the name of Merlin's perky tush, I implore you to recall that she is only one of sixteen prefects and Arithmantically speaking is unlikely to be the one to catch you, especially so far from Gryffindor tower in the middle of the night. Better odds that it's Filch. Do you enjoy being shouted at by him too? Are rude old squibs your type? Do the threats to hang us by our thumbs get you going? Are detentions scrubbing floors just an excuse to spend time with Filch? Do you want to formally adopt Mrs. Norris and settle down with him?"

"Oh, you're right, Padfoot! I'm an idiot. She's not even on patrol tonight! Sorry for trying to throw the prank, mate."

Sirius looked at James in disbelief for a second and then carried on down the hall, muttering about creepy obsessive stalkers who memorized the prefect patrol schedule.

o0O0o

Two hours later, the two Marauders had successfully defaced the potions classroom and had also stopped by the kitchens to pick up a midnight meal from the neurotically eager Hogwarts elves.

"Hippogriff," Sirius told the Fat Lady. "And may I just say that you are looking very fetching tonight, madam. Did you change your hair?"

"Oh, you are a charmer," the portrait replied but she swung open to reveal the entrance with a wink.

Stepping through the portrait hole, Sirius saw that Lily was sitting in the common room working on what was most likely the Charms essay he was planning on ignoring altogether. He started to get a bad feeling which was confirmed when James's infallible Lily-sensor homed in on his long-term crush. Sirius sometimes wondered if James had placed some kind of tracking charm on her because his attention always gravitated to where she was.

"Evans! You are as beautiful and studious as ever. Would you like to know what I was just up to?"

Lily looked up from her parchment. "Not really, Potter," she replied.

"Well," James plowed on, undeterred, "obviously we stopped by the kitchens to pick up some sustenance, but before that—"

"Don't care, Potter."

"It's against the rules and we were out past curfew, but the really exciting part is what we did right before that!"

Sirius clapped a hand over his eyes and dragged it down over his face, looking skyward and letting out a long-suffering sigh. James was about to earn them a Legendary Lily Evans Rant when all he wanted to do was bring the food up to their dormitory and bother Peter and Remus until they woke up to eat with them.

"We defaced a professor's classroom! I'm not going to tell you which one, Evans, because then you might try to fix it before anyone gets a chance to admire its horror, but suffice to say it will be very distracting for lessons tomorrow and I anticipate it lasting at least a full day."

James rocked back onto his heels, clasped his hands behind his back, and waited with a stupid grin on his face for the inevitable storm to hit.

Lily didn't disappoint.

"POTTER! THAT IS INCREDIBLY IRRESPONSIBLE AND SELFISH OF YOU! HOW DARE YOU DO SOMETHING TO INTERFERE WITH OUR EDUCATION WHEN THE EXAMS ARE ONLY TWO MONTHS AWAY? YOU MAY ASPIRE TO BE A USELESS DELINQUENT WITHOUT ANY MOTIVATION WHATSOEVER TO ACHIEVE BUT FOR SOME OF US EXAMS ARE ACTUALLY IMPORTANT FOR OUR FUTURE SUCCESS! NOT EVERYONE CAN SKATE BY WITH A FANCY FAMILY NAME AND A WINK! YOU ARE—"

The shouting continued, but neither of the boys was paying attention to her words. Sirius had tuned out instantly and was waiting for it to end so he could go eat. James was watching the strands of dark red hair near her face escape from her ponytail in her agitation. She was so gorgeous and so impassioned, and he congratulated himself on being the cause of her passion. The way in which he got her attention was unimportant. It was enough just to be this close to her, with all of her focus on him, and to see her cheeks turning pink as she yelled.

Lily was getting closer and closer to the boys as she finished her diatribe. She punctuated her final comment, "TWENTY FIVE POINTS FROM GRYFFINDOR! EACH!" with a hard poke in James's chest.

James couldn't help himself once she touched him and his expression crossed the line. Lily looked at his face and wondered why it seemed off. He wouldn't dare…but this was James Potter. It dawned on her slowly that not only did he not listen to what she was saying, he actually had the nerve to look at her romantically while she berated him. Fury rose in her, but she tamped it down hard with the newfound knowledge that expressing it would only make him happier.

James watched her snap her jaw shut, spin on her heel, collect her books and essay, and storm up the staircase to the girls' dormitory.

"Goodnight, moon to my stars and light of my life! I look forward to seeing you tomorrow!"

"I hate you, Prongs. Your crush is ruining my life," Sirius told James.

"She looked even better than usual tonight," James replied dreamily.

"Merlin's flawless hiney, you've got it so bad."

o0O0o

 **A/N: Thoughts? Can you tell which character was my inspiration for the new design scheme for Slughorn's classroom? More to come soon! I'm hoping for 5 reviews before I post the next chapter, so the sooner you review the sooner I publish more!**


	2. Merlin's Well-Formed Buttocks

**A/N: Well, I don't have any willpower to hold out for more reviews. So thanks SaintClaire for yours and maybe a new chapter will encourage everyone else to leave one? The feedback means a lot to me.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. JK owns them. JK also owns me. JK probably owns you if we're being honest.**

o0O0o

Lily marched into her room, hair and magic practically crackling from her anger. She stomped around collecting her things for bed and thought about how annoying James Potter was. No one else could rile her up so fast, and certainly no one else dared to _get off on it_. What an infuriating arse! He couldn't even respect her enough to listen to what she was saying when she told him off. He provoked her all the time, and she always played right into it by giving him a show. She growled and got into her four-poster, wrenching the drapes shut so she could stew in seclusion. How dare he view her punishments as a reward?

Lily sat upright in her bed when the solution suddenly came to her in an epiphany. If Potter enjoyed being yelled at, she just had to do the opposite in order to punish him. The normal techniques were evidently just serving as a disgusting sort of positive reinforcement of rule-breaking for him. Every time he misbehaved or broke rules, she would keep her cool and deduct points or assign detentions. She would not stoop to giving him what he wanted. Merlin knew it would be hard, because he really knew which buttons to push, but Lily set her mind to the task and prepared herself to embody aloofness, to be detached and calm. That would teach him not to bloody _sexualize_ her while she was giving him a piece of her mind.

She finally drifted off to sleep envisioning the bemused face Potter would make when she was cool and collected in the face of his immaturity. She just had to hold it together around him.

o0O0o

They had Potions first thing the next morning with Hufflepuff and James was practically bouncing in his seat next to Sirius as he waited for Lily to come in and see their modifications to the dungeon classroom.

Sirius was enjoying the mixed expressions of disgust and amusement from their classmates as they took in the pale pink stone walls and the china plates with adorable kittens staring out at the room. Each plate was mounted on a frilly doily held to the wall with a sticking charm. He felt that the lacy trim around the doorframe was a particularly nice touch, and he was still admiring that when he saw Lily come through next to Mary McDonald, a muggleborn Hufflepuff sixth-year.

The girls both froze for a second in shock, taking in the changes. Lily took a deep breath in through her nose and James watched eagerly, waiting for her to expel the air along with a rant directed at him.

Instead, Lily just exhaled out of her mouth and went to her bench. Turning to Mary, she started a conversation about the effects of brewing a potion on the night of a full moon versus a new moon. Mary looked a little confused that the prefect renowned for her quick temper hadn't made so much as a comment about the dungeon's new look but she said something about dosage being affected by the phase of the moon during brewing.

James looked disappointed at the total lack of a response from Lily, but then again it wasn't all that disruptive yet and she'd been expecting something like it from their chat last night. Just wait until Slughorn came in. What happened then would really get her going, and she'd probably glare at him with that incredible intensity the whole day. He could hardly wait.

Slughorn's rotund form finally bustled into the room, a few minutes late. It wasn't uncommon for Slughorn to linger lovingly over his breakfast in the Great Hall and miss the beginning of class. The class tittered as he collected his materials at the front of the room. He still hadn't looked up and noticed the modifications courtesy of the Marauders.

"Good morning, sixth years! Where did we leave off last time? Ah yes, we were discussing the properties of various healing potions—" he broke off as he realized that his classroom didn't look the way it should. He looked around the room, a smile growing on his face.

"Oh ho," he chuckled indulgently, wagging his finger in James and Sirius' general direction. "I wonder who could have been responsible for this redecorating job? Well, my boys—"

At the activation phrase "my boys" the dozens of cats adorning the walls were all set off. A deafening cacophony of meows filled the room as the silencing spell on the plates broke and Slughorn was unable to speak over the noise the cats produced.

The professor tried for a few minutes to make himself heard and attempted to silence the plates again, but James and Sirius had made them resistant to a number of solutions, including everything from simple silencing spells to bludgeoning hexes when the victim attempted to simply smash the obnoxious plates. Finally Slughorn simply wrote on the board, "CLASS DISMISSED. LUPIN, PLEASE FETCH FLITWICK FOR ME TO SEE IF HE CAN FIX THIS."

Sirius and James were positively gleeful at the successful prank and were first out of the dungeon classroom. James lingered by the door to wait for Lily to emerge. Sirius carried on down the hall until he noticed James still behind.

"Prongs, what in the name of Merlin's well-formed buttocks are you doing dawdling back there? We have a free period now, let's go up to the astronomy tower and drop things on people walking below. Maybe a bucket of soapy water on Snape would send a subtle message that we think he ought to wash his hair one of these years."

"Sounds great, Pads. Just give me a second and I'll catch up," James said distractedly. Lily was emerging from the violently pink classroom now and he was all set to receive the tongue-lashing of a lifetime. He'd ruined a lesson that she'd been looking forward to and exams were only two months away. She'd kill him, and he'd die happy. He held his breath as she approached him—

And proceeded to brush by without so much as a glance at his grinning face.

Sirius was bent double with laughter at his best friend's expression after Lily had gone. Gasping for breath, he said, "I dunno, Prongsie, maybe this wasn't big enough to really tick her off since she already lost it at you last night." He actually had an inkling that Lily might have finally cottoned on to the fact that James looked forward to her lectures, but he thought that this approach would be much, much more entertaining.

o0O0o

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! I'll post another chapter tomorrow probably regardless of reviews, but it would be really nice of you...**


	3. Merlin's Beautiful Bum

**A/N: Enjoy, read, review!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. JK owns them. JK also owns me. JK probably owns you if we're being honest.**

o0O0o

The next month pushed the patience of every student in Hogwarts to the absolute limit. James had never pulled so many pranks or made so many grand gestures to Lily. It seemed that around every corner James Potter lurked waiting to either attempt to ruin Lily Evans' day or attempt to woo her. Both tactics seemed to be equally doomed to failure.

In the first week after the Pink Potions Prank, James spent an entire weekend wearing his invisibility cloak and lurking at the base of the girls' staircase in Gryffindor tower. Every time an upper year girl attempted to get to the dormitories, he set a foot on the bottom step to turn it into a slide and send them tumbling back into the common room. The other three Marauders supported his efforts by bringing him meals from the kitchens and coffee to help him stay awake for the whole forty-eight hours. Sirius in particular was always happy to help.

The next week, James and Sirius convinced all of the house elves that what the girls in the castle really wanted was for their clothing to be shrunk in the wash. Their clothing was much too billowy and large, the boys told the elves. The elves in their neat, small pillowcases understood perfectly and felt sympathetic towards the witches who had to wear all that cumbersome, heavy material. They happily agreed to shrink each item a size or two when they collected clothes for washing. House-elf magic was strong enough that the girls' attempts to return their clothing to the proper size had been in vain, and they were forced to ask the professors to intervene. The males in the castle had really appreciated that particular prank, although all of the girls were out for the Marauders' blood.

In the third week of Lily's detachment, James used a modified version of the piertotum locomotor spell to animate all the statues and suits of armor in the school and made them come to the Great Hall at dinner and serenade her with the Hogwarts school song with James at their head. That one had almost gotten her. Her face turned a shade of red that he'd only seen once or twice in all their years at Hogwarts—a perfect ten on the Lily Evans Rage Scale—and for a minute he was ecstatic, thinking he'd finally pulled a prank big enough for her to tell him off again. She appeared to choke on air, fight an internal battle, and finally just stood and left, trailed by statues and suits. James wilted and at the staff table McGonagall managed to recover from her shock enough to give him a month of detentions and take a round hundred points from Gryffindor.

Lily had never been so frustrated with another human being in her life. The look on his face outside the Potions classroom that first day had been truly satisfying, but now her patience was worn almost to the breaking point. So many times, she almost gave up on her policy of not yelling at Potter when he was being a tosser. It was _so tempting_ and he was _such_ a prat. She was also getting worried that the situation would keep escalating and actually throw her off for exams. The pranking was incredibly disruptive and if her education suffered for their Potter's childish behavior there was going to be hell to pay.

James was getting more desperate with each passing day. Evans hadn't yelled at him since that night in the common room and he didn't know what he could do to get her attention again. The most she would do was take off points (he couldn't have cared less) or assign detentions with Filch (decidedly unpleasant, especially with Sirius still intent on beating the joke about him being in love with the caretaker to death). He was starting to run out of brilliant prank ideas to provoke her into scolding him.

Sirius was the only one enjoying himself. James had never been more dedicated to pranking and the Marauder was thrilled. It was also highly amusing to watch his friend's misguided attempts to get Lily's attention when he was now certain of what she was doing. Sirius considered Lily and James's suffering to be richly deserved payback for all the Legendary Lily Evans Rants he'd had to endure at James's side. They hadn't turned _him_ on, after all. He usually spent them coming up with new and innovative ways to describe Merlin's beautiful bum.

o0O0o

The evening after the unsuccessful statue prank, James returned to the common room after the first of his detentions with his Head of House. He was exhausted and he'd given up hope of getting Lily to interact with him again. That one had been his last big idea and he was now resigned to a life of loneliness and to never again seeing Lily at her most impassioned, hands and red hair flying and emotion animating every feature as she gave him her full attention for a moment.

He sat broodily in an armchair by the fire and stared at her where she sat across the common room, reviewing for the Transfiguration exam with Marlene McKinnon, Hestia Jones, and Dorcas Meadowes.

Lily was aware of James's eyes on her but did nothing. He technically wasn't breaking any rules by creepily staring, and she certainly wasn't going to go off on a tear like she might have done in the past if he'd looked at her that intently for that long.

Two hours later, the other three girls had long since gone off to bed and James and Lily were the only two remaining in the common room. Lily was still studying and James was still staring. Finally, Lily couldn't take the tension anymore.

"Can I help you, Potter?" she asked crisply, not looking up from her books and reminding herself to stay cool no matter what he did.

James started at the sound of her voice. He cleared his throat and shifted in the chair.

"Why have you stopped talking to me entirely?" he asked her in a low tone, smiling weakly. "I'm getting a bit desperate here, if you hadn't noticed."

Lily put down her quill and twisted halfway around to look at him. James felt a thrill as they made eye contact, something that hadn't happened for a month.

"Well, Potter, I finally worked out that you were getting some kind of perverse pleasure out of getting me angry at you and so I decided to stop rewarding bad behavior," she answered.

"So would you reward me for _good_ behavior?" James asked with a hint of his normal cheekiness, a spark of hope flaring to life in his belly.

"I would…consider it," Lily stated. "After all, basic training guidelines for a household pet say that you should offer positive reinforcement for desirable behaviors and withhold it for rule-breaking." She wondered why she was even indulging him in this and chalked it up to insanity brought on by the month of nonstop pranking and loopiness induced by the late hour. She decided to head up to her bed before she made any more questionable decisions.

James smiled brilliantly at her as she gathered her things. His bout of gloominess seemed to have ended.

"Evans, I would love nothing more than to be your pet. You'll find me on my best behavior from here on out," he told her with a salute.

Lily snorted. Potter on his idea of "best behavior" was something she'd pay to see.

"Yeah, right. Good night, Potter."

"Night, Evans."

o0O0o

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think? I respond to all reviews and PMs.**


	4. Merlin's Rounded Arse

**A/N: Longest chapter yet!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. JK owns them. JK also owns me. JK probably owns you if we're being honest.**

o0O0o

James went up to his dormitory a few minutes later and shook Sirius awake.

"Wha—huh? Prongs, what in the name of Merlin's firm behind are you playing at waking me at this ungodly hour? I need my beauty rest," Sirius mumbled into his pillow.

"Padfoot, come on! I need you to help me brainstorm things that would make Lily happy with me! It's urgent, I have to start tomorrow!"

"Nooooooo," Sirius groaned into his pillow. He sat up reluctantly and combed his fingers through his bedhead. "You finally figured it out? I was sort of hoping this phase would never end."

"She told me tonight that—wait, hang on a second, you _knew_? You knew why she'd stopped telling me off and you didn't tell me? Haven't you seen how I've been suffering for the past month without my Lily's attention?" Incensed, James smacked Sirius on the back of the head.

"Oh whatever, you deserved a little suffering," Sirius muttered, rearranging his hair and ignoring the smack. "I'm happy for you that you've worked out at last that what Lily wants is for you to not be a prat, but I'll be damned if I'm going to help you learn how to be less of a prat. Pranking, prat-like Prongs is your best look as far as I'm concerned."

Disgusted with his friend's nauseating devotion—really, a Marauder besotted to the point of giving up _pranking_ was both wrong and unseemly—Sirius drew the curtains around his bed again and hoped James would get the message and go to his own bed.

James did so, spending the next hour sitting on his bed and coming up with a multitude of ways to show Lily a whole new side of him the following day.

o0O0o

By the next morning Lily had put their late night conversation out of her mind altogether. She knew James was incapable of behaving like someone who was actually of age already, so went through the meditation that had become part of her morning routine to help her abstain from letting her temper get the best of her with whatever asinine stunt he would pull that day.

She took a deep breath as she walked into the Great Hall for breakfast with Marlene. This was one of James's favorite settings for ruining her day so she was on edge trying to be prepared for anything. She spotted his mop of hair and saw that he appeared to be eating and chatting innocently with Peter, but she knew that was no indication of safety. Many of his elaborate setups allowed him to orchestrate from behind the scenes and have an alibi at the time of the execution.

As she and Marlene walked to their normal spot further down the table, James greeted her at a normal volume and without any over-the-top compliments. Lily had no idea how to react.

"Hey, Evans. How are you?"

"…Morning? I'm fine?" Lily's confusion and wariness at his seemingly sane manner turned her responses into questions.

"Good, good. You ready for the practice exam in Herbology this afternoon?" James continued in a friendly tone. Phase one, carry on a polite conversation, seemed to be going alright, although she was acting cautious. He supposed he couldn't blame her for that given their track record.

"I think so. It's only a mock test so I'm not too worried." She was pretty worried about this behavior, though.

"I'm sure you'll do great. Brightest witch of our age and all that," James said with a smile. "And you can relax. There's no prank today. I solemnly swear it upon my honor as a Marauder."

"Okay, whatever that means. I'll…see you around, Potter." Lily walked to her spot, still looking puzzled, and James saw that the second she sat down Marlene, Dorcas, and Hestia had started to grill her, most likely on the fact that she'd just conversed civilly with her sworn enemy and recent tormentor.

James turned to his three closest friends with a serious expression.

"Gentlemen, I just made a vow as a Marauder, and if any of you pulls a prank today and Lily believes I had anything to do with it then I will consider it a breach of the Marauder code of honor and that is an offense I will not forgive. Got it?" Although he spoke to all three of them, his gaze never left Sirius.

"You got it, Prongs," Sirius held his hands up. "I solemnly swear on my honor as a Marauder and also upon Merlin's rounded arse that I will not prank Lily Evans today." Peter and Remus repeated the oath, omitting the bit about Merlin's behind.

"Great!" James beamed, all seriousness forgotten. "Padfoot, what is your weird obsession with Merlin's arse these last few months about?"

Sirius shrugged and took a bite of his toast.

"I just think it's unfair that people all assume Merlin didn't have a nice rump. I mean, people are swearing left and right on Merlin's saggy left whatever and I just think it's slanderous to the greatest wizard in all of history! Just because he was old and had a long white beard? So does Dumbledore and he is the proud owner of one of the perkiest butts I've ever laid eyes on. Merlin was certainly powerful enough to enchant himself a better one if he wasn't born with a good bum. There's simply no evidence one way or the other. Plus, you know me, I like to be respectful to authority figures."

James, Peter, and Remus had all been laughing through the explanation but they lost it at the last assertion. Remus's snort sent pumpkin juice shooting out of his nose and they cracked up all over again at the humiliation of the most dignified Marauder.

From down the bench, Lily and her friends were watching the sixth year boys laughing hysterically.

"I don't trust Potter," Lily muttered, glaring darkly at her pancakes. "Look at them all living it up over there, probably planning the next prank that will kill me and put me out of this misery once and for all."

o0O0o

Against all odds, Lily made it through the day without falling victim to so much as a color-changing charm on her hair.

She was studying in the common room again as the clock struck twelve and James approached her table.

"Ladies," he began with a nod at her dorm-mates, "could I borrow Evans here for a moment? I promise to bring her back all in one piece."

The three girls looked questioningly at Lily, who shrugged back at them in response and stood, leaving them to their Ancient Runes. James led her to a corner of the common room and they sat down on a pair of beanbag chairs.

"So how did I do today, behavior-wise?" he asked her, looking into her eyes intently. He was definitely still reveling in that simple contact after being resolutely ignored for so long.

Lily felt an odd flutter in her own stomach as he stared at her earnestly. She thought back on his behavior from the day. The most prominent feature was what he _hadn't_ done—the glaring absence of pranks.

When she didn't respond, he continued, "I think we should hammer down a real system here for the rewarding of good behavior. You did make a promise to reward good behavior—"

"I believe my exact words were 'I'd consider it.'"

"—and I know your Gryffindor honor wouldn't let you back out of a vow like that! So let's discuss. Is the absence of bad behavior sufficient to merit rewards? Can I earn bonus rewards by being an actively good person? If so, what types of deeds are you looking for? Finally, what will a reward entail? My suggestion is that for every day of good behavior during the week, I earn an hour in your presence on Sundays. No reward time added for neutral behavior, aka the absence of bad, and an hour subtracted from the reward total for downright bad behavior, which we'll consider being disruptive. Also, I request that non-disruptive and good-humored pranks not count against me. We can set out firmer guidelines for acceptable and non-acceptable pranking. If I misbehave on Sunday before reward time we'll cancel all of the reward hours for that week. We may want to draw up some kind of contract to keep all this straight."

Lily stared at James with her mouth hanging slightly open. She noticed it when she stopped talking, closed it and then opened it once more. Should she do it? Could she afford to take on the project right now of making James into a person whose presence would not offend everyone he came across? She glanced at him again and saw that he was still giving her that earnest look. Damn it. She sighed in defeat.

"Okay, Potter, let's write a contract. We'll have Remus witness it. As both a prefect and one of your best friends he's the most neutral party we're going to find in this school."

James's smile threatened to split his face in half as he called for Moony. Lily shook her head. What was she getting herself into?

o0O0o

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! Check back tomorrow around the same time for an update ;) And...if you like it...tell me? I respond to all non-anon reviews and PMs and the encouragement is huge for a relatively new writer like myself.**


	5. Merlin's Sculpted Butt Cheeks

**A/N: Enjoy, beautiful people!**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. JK owns them. JK also owns me. JK probably owns you if we're being honest.**

o0O0o

It became a routine for James and Lily to meet in the Gryffindor common room at midnight each night to review James's conduct that day and classify it as good, neutral, or bad.

Lily found that when his wit wasn't directed towards making her life as miserable as he could he was quite funny. He argued impassionedly for the deeds that he considered good and she often found herself laughing and agreeing with him, which was certainly a novel experience.

On Saturday night, looking at him as they sat in the beanbag chairs that had become their regular meeting place for behavioral reviews, she realized that she could sort of see, in a totally objective and detached kind of way, what girls like Mary McDonald were always going on about with him. Although his hair was a bit of a mess, it was thick and healthy-looking, and he had glasses but they accentuated his nice hazel eyes and sort of drew attention to his eyebrows which weren't bad either, and his lips were—nope. Lily cut herself off right there. It was too weird to look at him that way. James had the maturity level of a toddler. He still needed a rewards system in order to incentivize him not to be a total pain in her neck, for Merlin's sake.

"Do I have food on my face or something?" James's voice interrupted Lily's internal monologue. He ruffled his hair nervously in the way she used to find hideously annoying but which today didn't seem to bother her as much.

"Why would you have food on your face at midnight? Did you go to the kitchens tonight? I think that might bump you down to neutral for the day," she teased him to distract from the fact that she'd been staring at him in silence for almost a full minute.

"What? No way! Going to the kitchens doesn't bother anyone. The house elves love me, Sirius told me they've been asking about me since I haven't been in a while."

"Hmm. If you say so," she acquiesced, pleased he hadn't pushed harder about her staring.

"So if today was good and _not_ neutral, that brings me to three reward hours tomorrow. Four good days, one neutral, and one bad. Shall we meet here at, say, one o'clock? And don't eat lunch beforehand-I have a plan." James looked absolutely thrilled at the prospect of three hours of receiving Lily's undivided attention. This was going to be even better than any of her rants had ever been.

"Okay," Lily agreed, feeling a nervous flutter in her stomach again at the thought. "You'd better be good all morning—wouldn't want to lose all your rewards at the last minute."

James looked horrified at the mere thought and resolved to shut himself in his room for the entirety of Sunday morning so as to avoid any inadvertent bad behavior.

o0O0o

Ten minutes to one o'clock on Sunday found James pacing in front of the beanbags.

"What if she decides not to come after all? What if I screwed up this morning without realizing it and I lose all my hours? Padfoot, what if—"

"Kindly shut up, Prongs. Lily will be down any minute, Hestia said she's upstairs changing or curling her hair or whatever it is females do when they're alone."

"But _Sirius_ , this is my chance. I know it. I have three hours today to show her I can avoid being a prat and keep this thing going. Do you realize she's spoken to me more in the last week than in all six of our years at Hogwarts put together?"

"In the name of Merlin's sculpted left butt cheek _and_ his equally sculpted right butt cheek, will you please calm down? You're not going to do yourself any favors by scaring her off when she comes downstairs."

James obeyed and sat down on a beanbag chair, jiggling his leg with nerves. It was odd how meeting up with Lily every night in this very spot could feel so comfortable and normal and today's upcoming three-hour reward for good behavior was filling him with anxiety.

Upstairs in her dormitory, Lily checked her appearance in the mirror and smoothed her already wrinkle-free skirt over her thighs again. Merlin, what was she doing? Today was just James's reward for acting like a normal person for most of the week. She took one last deep breath, tucked her wand into a pocket along the waistband of her skirt, and walked down the steps to face the prospect of an afternoon with James Potter.

o0O0o

James was restraining himself (a new experience this week) from making a comment to Lily about this being a date. Merlin knew it was hard. His heart was screaming at him to maximize the time today and plan something romantic, try to finally win her over now that she'd seen another side of him. However, his head was afraid that if he scared her off today during reward time she would put a stop to all of it. Their contract had given her an "escape clause" in which every Sunday night she would decide if the rewards system would continue the next week. Lily had insisted on it, because with exams coming up she didn't want to be forced to deal with him if she got too busy "or if you revert back entirely." James took the "back" as encouragement—she was certainly aware that this past week he'd been different.

He just didn't think he could take it if he lost the newfound camaraderie they had been sharing. He'd thought that having her shriek at him was the best life got, but it was absolutely nothing to having her laugh with him. That way, he received the attention he craved from her, didn't get detention, and she seemed overall much more fond of the experience. So he couldn't bugger this up today.

"James?" Lily asked him. He felt a shiver go through his body when she said his first name but didn't let it show. It would probably creep her out. But maybe he could start calling her Lily instead of Evans?

"Yeah, sorry. I was just out of it for a minute there! Are you ready for three hours of enjoyment and amusement with James Potter?" he chickened out from using her first name.

"It'll be enough for me if I don't horribly regret every decision that led me here in three hours," Lily responded with a slight smile.

"You won't, Lily, I swear! Just tell me indoors or outdoors and get ready for a totally non-onerous afternoon." James congratulated himself on managing to call her Lily without any immediate consequences.

"Wow, onerous is a big word, James!" Lily teased. "Um, outside, I guess," she said, looking out the window at the clear May weather.

As they walked down from the tower and out of the castle, Lily noticed they were getting curious stares from every non-Gryffindor they encountered. She remembered with a start that all of their meetings had taken place in the common room and word may not have spread to all of the houses that the former enemies were now on friendly terms.

She spotted Mary McDonald with her housemate Emmeline Vance, and Lily's potions partner questioned her with her eyes to make sure James wasn't holding her against her will. Lily sent Mary a reassuring smile in response and the Hufflepuffs walked away, heads together and whispering furiously. Lily couldn't seem to bring herself to care about the gossip that would surely be spreading faster than Fiendfyre through the school when she glanced at James beside her.

o0O0o

 **A/N: Check back tomorrow for the final chapter when it will all come together and in the meantime, let me know what you think?**


	6. Merlin's Impressive Derrière

**A/N: The longest and final chapter! I can't believe it :) Enjoy and please leave me a review now that we're at the end.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. JK owns them. JK also owns me. JK probably owns you if we're being honest.**

o0O0o

As they walked towards the Black Lake, the lingering remnants of awkwardness between James and Lily dissolved until they were sharing the easy rapport they had created every night in the common room.

Lily realized they were passing by the section of shore that she had assumed was their destination. Friends and couples dotted the hillside enjoying the sun, studying, talking, or eating. She saw one auburn-haired Ravenclaw girl kissing her glasses-wearing boyfriend and her stomach gave an odd half flip. If she squinted, they almost bore a resemblance to her and James.

"So where are we headed, James?" she asked to distract herself from the other couple, who were still going strong.

"I have a spot," he responded mysteriously.

He was taking her to a clearing on a hill above the lake, a place the Marauders had discovered on a full moon in fifth year, but he couldn't tell her that. Besides, it would leave her wondering how he had found a secret place in a school where quiet and privacy were relative rarities. He couldn't wait for Lily to see what he had set up there.

As they crested another hill, Lily spotted what was waiting for them and smiled at the sight of a blue blanket, a few white cushions, and a covered straw picnic basket. Against the backdrop of the lake, it made an idyllic picture and Lily could hardly believe that James had created this when a month earlier all of his energy had gone to making mischief and mayhem. The effectiveness of her training regimen absolutely boggled the mind.

They reached the blanket and settled down. Lily felt a slight twinge of disappointment when he sat at a respectable distance from her, although he offered her all of the cushions. Now that he was nearing…tolerable, he had stopped with the insane attempts to romance her. She couldn't believe she was feeling slightly nostalgic for the antics that had driven her mad for so long.

"Alright!" James said, pulling the basket towards them. "Are you ready?"

Lily leaned forward as he opened the basket with a dramatic flourish, expecting to see some of the normal lunch fare from the Great Hall. Instead, her nose registered a smell that brought her back to her childhood and to summers in the Muggle world in an instant and a moment later her eyes confirmed the truth.

She looked up at James and incredulously said, "Pizza?"

"Yeah! Did I get it right?" James asked eagerly.

"How do you even know what pizza _is_?"

"Well, I heard you talking about it one time last year, with Mary I think, and you seemed pretty excited about the concept so I wanted to figure out what it was. I tried to look it up in the library for a while, except I thought it was spelled P-E-E-T-S-A so I couldn't find anything in there. Eventually Remus figured out what I was talking about and he told me it was a popular Muggle food, you remember his mum's a Muggle, so he's had it before with her. Then I kinda forgot about it for a while then but this week I started thinking about what we should do today, and I thought it would be good to get something we don't eat every day here. So I've been working with the house elves and Moony to get the recipe right. The elves were really eager to learn something new and they've started talking about putting it in the Great Hall, actually. Sirius and Pete tried a lot of the attempts too and they're both crazy about it. Padfoot talked about Merlin's statuesque bottom or whatever for a solid ten minutes when we tried this recipe yesterday and Moony gave it the thumbs-up so I figured this was the one! Remember when I asked you in the common room if I had food on my face? I actually had been to the kitchens earlier tasting the pizza and I was paranoid you'd figure it out before I could surprise you."

Lily stared at him in disbelief and shook her head but picked up a slice of pizza. It was incredible what he could do when he devoted his energy to making her happy instead of making her angry. James grinned at her and did the same.

o0O0o

Two and a half hours later, they were still talking and laughing. Lily, blushing, was telling him about a prank she'd pulled on Marlene in first year. Marlene was a pureblood and had been a little snobby towards Lily at first until Lily had used regular Muggle superglue to attach all of Marlene's shoes to the wall of their dormitory. Marlene had been forced to swallow her pride and ask Lily for help, and since then there had been respect and friendship between the girls.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," James chuckled and lay back on the blanket. He looked surprised when Lily flopped down and did the same.

He rolled onto his side to face her and she turned her head to look at him. Lily's stomach tightened in nervousness as James finally stopped giggling at the idea of her pulling a prank on someone.

His face turned more serious and he reached out a hand towards her. Her heart stopped for a moment, thinking he was going to brush her cheek.

Instead, he just tugged the end of her braid lightly. James thought it was his favorite hairstyle on her, remembering how she looked with wisps escaping from a long plait when she reprimanded him for jinxing the showerheads in the Slytherin girls' lavatory to turn their skin green in fourth year. He could tell her heart hadn't really been in that one, especially since he'd seen her fighting a smile earlier at Narcissa Black's anguished screeching.

Lily started turning a deep pink when he touched her hair. James panicked, thinking he had upset the delicate balance that existed between them by overstepping the boundaries.

"Are you mad? Sorry I pulled your hair. The color of your face's nearing a six on the Lily Evans Rage Scale—" he started to say.

"You have a Rage Scale for me based on the shade of my face? Wait, never mind, I doubt I want to know about it. No, James, you prat, I'm not angry. You did very well all week and you did a really good job today too."

James studied her face, looking at the color lingering in her cheeks. The shade seemed to merit a four on the Rage Scale, but her expression was totally different, almost hopeful? A beautiful possibility occurred to James, and he screwed up all of his Gryffindor courage to pursue it.

"A good job today, you say? Good enough to merit a little more rewarding, perhaps?" James asked cheekily.

Lily's eyes flickered to his mouth briefly but she gave her best noncommittal hum.

The look in James's eyes changed to something both determined and vulnerable and he scooted towards her on the blanket, twisting his neck to press his lips to hers. The angle was awkward and the flavor slightly resembled pizza but the kiss was almost unbearably sweet and it felt _right_ and Lily felt the weird ball of nerves that had been growing in her stomach all week melt and turn into a kind of heat that made it seem natural to card her fingertips lightly through the dark hair at his temple to the nape of his neck and pull his head a little bit closer as she opened her lips under his—

And then Sirius Black's voice broke through the moment and wrenched them apart.

"Kids, that was more beautiful than Merlin's impressive derrière and so _very_ long in coming. You know, I really feel like I had a hand in all of this—"

James cut him off with a groan. "Scram, Padfoot. I'm busy being absolutely, perfectly, deliriously happy and your ugly mug is really ruining the scenery and the mood."

"Well excuse the hell out of me for being curious about the outcome of today's bloody 'reward session.' If that's not the most suggestive thing I've ever heard you come up with…how can you think 'reward session' and _not_ have your mind go there? Knew this was going to happen," Sirius was muttering but he departed with a saucy wink at the pair.

In the silence that followed, Lily started to panic internally. What the hell had she done? What if they had ruined their tentative friendship? What if he reverted back to the immature prat he'd always been? Oh Merlin, what if she was a bad kisser and he didn't like her anymore?

James was panicking even worse than Lily was. He'd really messed that up. He didn't even ask before he kissed her! Lily had been turning him down for years and he had gone and kissed her when she didn't say he could. She was going to use the escape clause and get rid of the behavior system, and he wouldn't even be able to talk to her as a friend like he had been for the last beautiful week. He could _kill_ Padfoot for interrupting the best moment of his life and bringing him back to reality. James suddenly realized they had been silent for too long and said the first thing that popped into his head.

"I can't believe it was only a bit over a month ago you jabbing me in the chest was the high point of my existence."

"I can't believe it took me almost six years to figure out that you enjoyed being scolded."

"Only by you, love."

This time, it was Lily who leaned across the gap to kiss him and silenced the last of their worries. She scooted her whole body over to his after a moment, aligning her head with his shoulder and burying her face there to avoid looking at him as she said the next part.

"Well, after all this effort to train you, I can hardly let someone else enjoy the fruits of my labor," she muttered.

"Very true," James agreed, mouth pressed the top of her head, pretending that his heart wasn't about to beat out of his chest and take flight at her words. He wondered if she could feel its acceleration. "Although I think maybe we should work out a new rewards system."

"Yeah?" Lily tilted her head back and braved a look at his face. She read unmitigated adoration in his expression and joy and heat in his eyes. "And how are you thinking you ought to be rewarded for good behavior from now on?"

"I'm sure I'll come up with something," James replied with a wicked grin as he pulled her face to his again, with no plans to let go anytime soon.

"The wonders of positive reinforcement…" Lily murmured into the kiss with an unstoppable smile curving her lips upward.

FIN

o0O0o

 **A/N: Well, that's the end! Thanks to everyone who has reviewed, followed, favorited, or sent me a PM. I appreciate all of these things so much and I still respond to all reviews and messages. If inspiration strikes in the future I may come back and write an epilogue for this but we'll see. First multi-chapter fic is history now and it feels great!**


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